The Greatest War
by eternity of black
Summary: As Britain is thrown into another world war the students must unite with a battered platoon in order to fight off the Russian war machine. Warning: Character Death.
1. The path to the castle

Authors note: Lemme get this outta the way, i don't own harry potter. Now then, this story is set in harry's sixth year sometime after he's learned about the horcruxes but before Dumbledore has died.

Also, this story is going to have some MAJOR character death in later chapters, you've been warned.

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"I hope this is urgent Mr. Prime Minister, as you know we're very busy right now." Said Rufus Scrimgeour as he sat in the office of the Prime Minister of England.

"I apologize for the lateness of the hour but i'm afraid i have some rather grim news." spat the prime minister. He had no reason to be polite as the "other minister" knew how much he disliked him.

"I was told when I was first contacted by, your kind, that we were to inform each other about anything that could affect both our worlds." the prime minister began.

"Now i realize you have your hands full with the war your fighting against he-who-must-not-be-named, but something very important has happened on my end that you will need to know about. Gentleman, we are at war." the Prime Minister told them.

"We're quite aware of that Minister." Scrimgeour said in a sarcastic tone.

"I mean the Russians have signed a declaration of war along with the Chinese, Cubans, Germans, Austrians, and god knows who else. Britain is one of thier main targets along with America, France, and anywhere else that decideds to stand against them." the Prime Ninster said darkly.

"You mean on top of our war this country is about to be thrown into a full blown muggle war as well?" Scrimgeour asked.

"I'm afraid so, do any of you remember what happened the last time England went to war?" asked the Prime Minister.

"I do, i may have just been a boy then but i still remember. Entire cities bombed into rubble, air raids night and day, millions dead, entire countries all but wiped out. Do think it'll be as bad this time?" asked a very old wizard the Minister had not seen before.

"I do not know, but it very well could be if not even worse. We were caught off guard and unprepared, we have some time to build our army and national defenses but the situation is looking bleak. We are facing a far more dangerous enemy than before.  
They are strong militaristically and will have no second thoughts about leveling towns and cities to try and force a surrender.  
I hate to say it but it is my personal opinion that this may be one fight we can't win." the Minister said gloomily.

"Now you listen to me. Never go into battle thinking like that, your bound to loose. Victory is very rarely decided by anything other than those who do the fighting." Scrimgeour scolded him.

"Maybe in your world mister Scrimgeour, maybe in your world. 'muggle wars' as you called them are decided by two things, technology and numbers. While i can say our technology is level with thiers i'm afraid i cannot say our numbers are. Russia and China togeather have over a fifth of the worlds population as well as some of its most advanced technology, don't lecture me in a situation like this. Your war may be totally different from the one we're ALL about to face but ours is no less dangerous if not more." the Prime Minister said as he tried to hold back his anger.

"Are you saying our war is less deadly!? Need i remind you of the thousands who have lost thier lives in these last few months!" yelled Scrimgeour in a rage. The Prime Minister wasn't going to be bullied in his own office.

"Thousands! Thats nothing compared to what this war could cost us! Millions upon millions will die! Cities will burn and entire countries may fall! Oh how i wish a war in which only mere thousands died would befall me, instead i have to worry about a war that is likely to consume the world!" the Minister was going to continue until he was cut off by the old man he thought was the headmaster of the wizarding school.

"Let us be civil here. Both our wars are deadly and if not won could threaten our very way of life. Now Rufus you must be willing to accept that at some point we may need to get involved in this muggle war if for no other reason than to survive. However, Prime Minister that does not mean we are going to put legions of wizards under your command. We will each have to help each other in our own way if we wish to come out of this alive." said the old man. The Prime Minister quickly realized this man had the respect of the other wizards and decided not to argue.

"Very well, how will i contact you?" asked the Prime Minister.

"Don't worry, we'll establish a safe method of communication soon. Until then good day to you Prime Minister." Said Scrimgeour as he exited through the fireplace. He was followed by the other wizards as they each said a polite farewell. The Prime Minister had to admit that even though he despised the wizards and hated having to resort to cooperating with them they were a very polite bunch.  
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Several months later

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Sergent James William Griffith and what was left of his battered battalion marched blindly through the scottish countryside as they desperatly tried to avoid detection. Less than a week ago the frontlines had been more than fifty miles northeast, now the frontlines were right on top of them.

They had been marching for hours after the town they were stationed in had been hit by and unexpected bombing raid, which was followed promptly by 15,000 ground troops and a few dozen armored tank divisions. For all they knew no one else had made it and seeing as to how they could not establish radio contact with the main base Sergent Griffith was becoming a little worried.

He knew they were out in the middle of nowhere, as he figured than was the safest place for them. He knew damn well he didn't have a shot in hell at recapturing any nearby base as they would be completely over run, so he decided they would find a nice quiet place to camp until they could establish contact with the nearest intact headquarters. How likely that was to happen, he didn't think about.

"Sergent, can we take a rest for christ sakes! We've been running all day!" complained one of his soldiers.

"Quit your whining Newman, i'm ten years older than you and i still got a few more miles in me. Now keep marchin!" commanded the Sergent as they came over a particularly steep hill. When he reached the top Sergent Griffith immediately ordered his men to stop marching.

"My god..."said Griffith as he looked at the massive structure that lay before him. It was a decriped castle, covered in moss and full of huge gaping holes. It seemed almost magestic as it sat above a very large lake on a tall hill. He had no idea how a castle of this size could not be found on his map but he didn't care, it was the perfect place to fortify. If it came down to it and they were attacked at least it was defendable, far better than trying to fight in an open field and get slaughtered.

"Allright men listen up, you all see that castle over there i'm sure. Now i don't know how in the hell its not on the map but i do know i'd rather set up camp in there instead of out here. It's defendable and it gives us the added advantage of having huge towers and being located on a very tall hill. We'll see that bastards comin from miles off, come on boys we're almost there!" He cheered as he led the way towards the monsterous castle. 


	2. Night before the new world

Authors note: i don't own harry potter.

I know theres only been a little bit of story on the magic side so far but i promise that will change in the next few chapters.

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Meanwhile Harry Potter was wasting away another afternoon as he sat at the edge of the lake and put his homework off for another few hours. He sat and wondered about things like the prophecy, the horcruxes, Voldemort. Harry just wanted to forget it all, if only for that afternoon. He just wished he could sit and enjoy the day without those thoughts bearing down on him.

He sighed as he stood up and brushed the dirt of his robes. With one last glance at the lake he began to walk around the the grounds with no real destination. He was just putting one foot in front of the other trying to kill some time when he heard something. He couldn't quite tell what it was at first, that is until he got closer and realised it as the unmisteakable sounds of someone crying.

He started to walk away until he heard his name, which utterly confused him. What had he done to make someone cry? He decided to find out and crept closer to the sounds. As he rounded the corner he saw who was crying, it was none other than Cho Chang. Harry was about to turn and leave but something told him to stay so he did.

"Oh...Harry..sniff...I miss you so much. Why did i say those stupid things!!" she asked herself as she started sobbing more violently.  
"Harry...why does he hate me?..doesn't he know I still care about him?" she asked herself sadly as she cried even harder. Harry was totally caught off guard, this was the last thing he expected to hear today. He decided it was best to leave before she saw him.

He slowly walked back towards the Castle as he thought about what he just heard. He almost couldn't believe it, he had seen Cho a just few days ago and she looked fine. He had no idea she was still crying over him and to his suprise he felt rather sorry for her.  
He may have broken it off with her a little roughly but he never hated her and he definatly didn't like seeing her cry.

As he made his way to the common room Harry was a jumbled mess of emotions among which were anger, regret, pity, and most of all sadness. He had thought he was over Cho, but seeing her crying like that...made him sad. Much sadder than he would've thought. He decided he would go to bed early and when up to his bed. As he tried to sleep Cho keep finding her way into his thoughts.

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Sergent Griffith had finally gotten his platoon within a mile of the gigantic castle. He had expected to be there much sooner but the castle looked alot closer than it was. After a full days march they were beat but they had to keep going, he wasn't going to set up camp for the night until they reached that goddamn castle and that was that.

"C'mon men! Its just a bit farther!" He shouted as they made thier way up yet another hill.

"Thats what ya said hours ago!" yelled one soldier.

"We've been marchin all fuckin day Sergent! We need some damn rest." moaned another.

"You'll get your rest just as soon as we reach that damned castle. Now march!" he bellowed as the castle's outer wall came into sight.

"Allright! The outer perimeter's in sight, almost there men." he reassured them as they slowed thier pace to a fast jog. He approached the wall and quickly realized it was far to high to climb.

"Well, get the hooks boys we gotta get over this wall somehow." said the Sergent as they pulled out the grappling hooks from one of thier supply bags.

"Ha, you know Sarge, i always thought these things were useless." laughed a soldier named Barns ans he took the hooks out.

"So did i son. We best leave the real thinkin to them suits back at HQ. All we gotta concern ourselves with is gettin over that damn wall." instructed the Sergent as his men began to throw the hooks over the wall. However, quite unexpectedly the hooks just bounced off, it was almost as if there were some invisible wall preventing them from attaching.

After a half hour of trying and several cursewords later they decided not to use the hooks any more.

"Well Sarge, its the strangest thing i've ever seen. Throw the hooks up and they bounce offa the damn air." said a private named Brooks.

"Well, i guess we could blow a hole in the damn wall but we might as well get on the radio and give the damn Russians our coodinates.  
Looks like we're gonna need to find a gate, but i think you boys have earned yourselves a nights rest first. Lets go make ourselves a camp out of sight somewhere." the Sergent ordered as he and his men marched to the other side of a nearby hill and made a camp for the night.

Several hours later most of the soldiers had gone to sleep. Some of the younger ones however had decided to stay up and make conversation with the Sarge. As most of the younger soldiers had only joined the platoon recently they had not yet had a chance to really get to know the sergent.

"So Sarge, any war stories you wanna tell us about?" asked a soilder named Crawford.

"Yeah, c'mon Sarge. Tell us all about your former battles." laughed Brooks. The sergent looked the two men over before replying. Brooks was your typical young solider with his filthy mouth, chain smoking, and his never ending rants about pussy and killing russians.  
Crawford on the other hand was a solider Sergent Griffith could respect.

Crawford was one of the top snipers from America. The Sergent was never really too fond of the old red white and blue country but the bastards knew how to train a soldier. Crawford was every thing a soldier aspired to be, that is if they didn't get ripped into shreds by machine gun rounds. He was brave, smart, and a damn good shot. On top of that he had one of the fastest reload times the sergent had ever seen. Needless to say Sergent Griffith trusted the man.

"So you boys wanna hear about the big battles do ya? You wanna hear about when the Russians and the Chinese landed at Cape Wrath and fought us for weeks? Well i'll tell ya boys, i'll tell ya. It was like a fuckin modern day Normandy, thousands rushed the shores as we cut em down. There were more bodies than i thought possible, we were so damn well fortified it took the bastards two weeks to get off the beaches. By then the water was red with blood for about a hundred yards out." the segent recalled as a shiver ran through his body.

"Uh, Sarge if you were so well fortified how did they get past?" asked Brooks.

"Ha, they were bound too eventually. After awhile we started to run low on ammo and food, not too mention the fact that our sanity was starting to slip. It ain't easy to do nothing but gunnin people down all day for a few weeks straight. And then of course theres the fact that the bastards had soo many damn troops. Wave after wave after wave, we might as well have been shootin the damn ocean waves for all the good it did." He said with a bitter look in his eyes.

"How many of them do you think we killed?" asked Crawford.

"Who knows, couple hundred thousand maybe even a million. All i know is it was too much death for one place, all you could see was death." the sergent said.

"Well i'd say a million is a pretty good fuckin start Sarge, a pretty good fuckin start." Brooks told the Sergent as he made his way to the tents to get some rest.

"A pretty good start...but not good enough." the sergent said to himself as he made his way back to the tents as well.

Crawford decided he wanted one more look at this castle before he turned in. He walked back over the hill and set up his sniper rifle. He activated the nightvision and began to scan the building which, from what he could see, looked like it might fall apart at any minute. The castle was huge with as many as twenty stories he guessed.

He also scanned the outer wall and found the entrance gate about a mile to the west of where they had tried to scale the wall. Crawford wondered how in the hell no one had found this place before, it was simply impossible. If nothing else an airplane would've had to have seen it. Crawford stared at the castle as he thought it over for a minute, he wasn't so sure about this place.

The castle made him feel uneasy and the more he stared at it the stronger the feeling became. He decided he'd had enough of this after about twenty minutes and joined the others in thier tents for the nights rest. Allthough he rested much less soundly than the others.


	3. Soldiers at breakfast

Authors note: in response to bhoy1888: well its still the begining of the sixth year so harry isn't with ginny yet. And thanks for the reminder about the anti muggle charms, i almost forgot. They will be in this chapter as i want this fic to be as accurate and true to the novels up to this point in the story. As an excuse i'll just say that the anti muggle charms were lessened in case Hogwarts needed to cooperate with muggles at some point during the war.

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Sergent Griffith and his men once again made thier way to the castle walls, this time however they headed in the direction of the gates Crawford had pointed out to them. It was only about a mile and a half away so they reached it in no time at all.

"All right men, lets get this damn gate open and get inside." said the serget as he ordered two soldiers to try and pry the metal giant open. What happened next baffled the sergent, as well as the rest of the platoon.

"Well open this big bastard in no time sarg-" said the soldier as he touched the gate. The instant his hand came in contact with the metal bars his face became blank and unfocused.

"You know Sarge..." said the soldier in a daze. "I just remembered its my sons little league pratice today, i gotta go Sarge." said the soldier as he started walking away from the gates.

"What the hell are you doing soldier! You get back to that goddamn gate right now!" ordered the sergent. The soldier kept walking away as if he hadn't heard a thing, the rest of the platoon had uneasy looks on thier face. No one had ever disobeyed a direct order from the sergent before, no one.

"Men! Restrain him!" he ordered as two soldiers fought the man to the ground.

"I HAVE TO SEE HIM! LEMME GO SARGE I HAVE TO SEE HIM RIGHT NOW!" the mad soldier screamed bloody murder as he was tied up and gagged.

"What the fuck is wrong with him Sarge?" asked Brooks with a confused look on his face.

"Who knows son, war is a terrible thing. Dumb bastard musta just snapped." said the sarge as he ordered another man to take his place. To the sergents shock and suprise the second soldier had a similar outburst about going to see his daughters soccer game. After two more men had repeated this insane process the sergent decided not to touch the gate any more.

"What in the holy fuck is going on here?" the sarge asked himself as he scratched his head. He never seen anything even remotely like this before.

"So what do we do now Sarge?" asked Crawford as he looked at his gagged squadmates.

"You got me there Crawford. Bout the only thing we got left to do is blow the son of a bitch to smitherins, but thats just somethin i don't wanna risk. Strangest damn thing i ever saw..." added the sergent as he looked the gates over in puzzlement.

"Sarge! get over here we got voices!" one of the soldiers said quitely as he motioned for the sergent to come. The sergent ran over quitely and listened intently.

"I'm sorry to have to ask this of you again Severus, but we will need more information before we can move forward." said an old voice. The segent may not have known anything about the bodiless voice but he knew it belonged to someone who commanded respect.

"I grow weary of this Dumbledore. I cannot continue this charade forever, our time is running out." said the man named Severus. He sounded quite unpleasent to the sarge.

"We still have time, time enough to take the proper action. I promise you Severus that you will not have lead this double life much longer." Said Dumbledore as he walked away.

"Sarge, it sounds like one of them is heading towards the gate. What are our orders sir?" asked Brooks as he readied his weapon.

"Don't shoot, just capture him, it's about damn time we found out just what in the hell is going on around here." said the Sarge as his men positioned themselves on either side of the gate. They waited for about a minute before a man walked through the gates, needless to say the last thing Severus Snape expected was a face full of auto matic weapons.

"Get the fuck on the ground! NOW!" Shouted Brooks as he shoved the man to the ground. He searched him and found no weapons, only a stick.

"Sarge hes carryin a stick with him!" laughed the soldier as he threw it away.

"Who are you and what is this place?" asked the sergent as he looked the pale man over. The sergent had been right about the man from his voice, he looked like a very unpleasent person. With his greasy hair and hooked nose and he was wearing a damn robe.

"How did you get this close to the castle?" asked Snape before it dawned on him. "Of course, the anit muggle charms were lessened."

"The anti what?" asked the sergent. This man must be using codewords, and the sarge didn't like codewords.

"Muggle, thats what you are a muggle." said Snape as he felt his anger rising. How could he, the man who had fooled even the Dark Lord, allow himself to be captured by muggles?

"Allright enough of this shit, now this is how its gonna work. Your going to open that gate for us, after that we're taking you inside the castle and we're gonna find out every thing we need to know. One way or the other." said the sergent as Snape was brought to his feet.

"Pick up my wand first." Snape instructed.

"Wand?" asked Brooks while he held back a laugh.

"The 'stick' you so carelessly threw away." Snape replied as he gave Brooks a glare that could melt ice. The soldier retrived the 'wand'  
and put it in his pocket.

"You get your 'wand' when we're inside the castle now lets move." ordered the Sergent.

"I'm afraid you won't be able to enter the castle grounds unless i have my wand. Otherwise the enchantments will drive you mad, as it already has with several of you." Snape said as he noticed the gagged troops. The sergent thought for a second before deciding, how dangerous could a damn stick be anyway?

"Fine, give the man his stick if it'll make him feel better." ordered the Sergent as Brooks handed Snape his wand. Snape walked over to the bound soldiers and waved his 'wand'. A flash of light burst out of it and the gagged soldiers stopped squirming immediately.

"You can untie them now." said Snape as he walked back to the gate. He waved his wand again and a small clicking noise was heard. The gates swung open as the soldiers backed up in suprise.

"Gentleman, welcome to Hogwarts." said Snape as he walked through the gates.

"Well no sense standing here with our dicks in our hands boys." said Crawford as he walked through the gates. "Holy fucking shit...Sarge you may wanna take a look at this." said Crawford with an unreadable look on his face.

"My god..." said sergent Griffith as he walked through the gates into an enitrly new world.

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Harry had woken up that day from an uneasy sleep. His dreams were full of Cho's sobs as he heard he repeat the same thing over and over again.

"Why does he hate me? Why does he hate me?" cried Cho into her hands in his mind.

Harry didn't know why she was affecting his thoughts so heavily. All of his memories of her swam in and out of his mind as he thought about the first time they saw each other in his third year. He thought about thier disaterous first and only date. He thought about the things they had said to each other last year. But most of all he thought about how he couldn't stop thinking about her.

Why did have have to hear her? Why did he have to see her crying again? He had been fine before he saw her again and now he was racked with dozens of emotions, at the forefront of which was guilt. He knew it had been as much her fault if not more as his but it didn't stop him from feeling guilty.

As he made his way to the Great Hall and sat down to eat his breakfast. As he nibbled his toast he couldn't help but look over at Cho. She didn't look at all like she still cried her eyes out over him. As he stared at her she looked back and for a moment thier eyes met.

Just then the door to the Great Hall was thrown open as Snape walked in followed by gasps of suprise and shock when he was followed by a large group of heavily armed soldiers. The Great Hall fell into silence as members from both worlds stared at each other.

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As the walked into the largest room yet Crawford was surpirsed to find a hall full of children. Some couldn't have been older than eleven or twelve years old while others looked like they were only a year or two younger than him. He scanned the room and saw right off that they were no threat.

There was silence for a few more seconds until finally a very old but powerful looking man rose from his seat and spoke.

"What is the meaning of this?" asked the old man whos voice Crawford recognized from earlier.

"Well mister Dumbledore I believe it was, we need some answers." the sergent said.

"Very well, you can accompany me to my office. However i will have to ask your men to lower thier weapons while they are in my school." Dumbledore said as he opened a door and motioned for the sergent to follow.

"Allright men listen up. while im gone Crawfords in charge, and when i get back this goddamn place better be fortified. Oh, and boys sholder your rifles. I don't think a bunch of kids are gonna start shooting at us." said the sergent as he walked through the door quickly followed by Dumbledore.

"You heard the sergent get your asses in gear lets move! I want a temperary base set up ASAP. Lets move into the larger hallway and get a defensive perimeter set up in less than 15." ordered Crawford as they walked out of the room full of kids. He gave one last look at them as closed the door behind him and wondered what in the hell this place was. 


	4. Magic

Authors note: I don't own harry potter.

My updates might get slower on this as im not sure how much longer im going to have access to the internt on my computer. If my internet gets turned off i have no idea how long it'll be before i get it again. If you want me to put as much time into this as possible before that leave me a review and let me know. Remember, the more reviews i get the more i'll want to continue this. So review it and give me some feedback here.

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Sergent Griffith had just had his mind blown. He had been taken to Dumbledores office and told very matter of factly that witches and wizards exist. The old man in front of him had even proved it by turning the sergents hat into a bird, which flew around the room before landing back on his head and becoming the hat again. He had also been told something about a wizard war and a man named Voldemort, but Griffith stopped paying attention after awhile. Magic, if it actually was that and not some trick, had nothing to do with his war and his objectives.

"Look Dumbledore, with all due respect i could care less about some madman wizard. The thing thats making me worried right now is the several thousand Russian troops who could very well be on thier way here." said Griffith as he looked the headmaster over.

"Do you have any reason to suspect these troops are on thier way here?" Dumbledore asked.

"Well they know we escaped for one so they're gonna be lookin for us. Second its pretty hard to cover the tracks of two hundred men so they'll probably be able to follow us. " said Griffith as he looked out of the headmasters window.

"Mr. Griffith i assure you that Hogwarts is more secure than you believe. You and your men will not have to worry about Russian troops while you are inside these walls." Dumbledore said confidently as he sat behind his desk.

"We got in. If we did then it isn't a strech to assume they can't. The first rule in war is not to underestimate your enemy and i'll be damned if i forget that now. On top of that i highly doubt this castle could withstand an assualt by an armored tank division not to mention a few thousand soldiers." Griffith replied as he paced the room thinking.

Sergent Griffith had been in alot of bad situations before and he had always managed to come out on top. He had a feeling that this time was different, and it unerved him. He paced the room and thought before Dumbledore spoke.

"The reason you were so easily able to infiltrate this castle is because we lessened some of our security charms in case we ever found ourselves in exactly this position. We realize that at some point we may have to become involved in your war and as such made it easier for muggles of British decent to enter Hogwarts. However, the strict charms and security measures are still in place against those who try to enter the castle and are not of British decent. This would include the Russians and the Chinese as well as any other invading force. So let me assure you once again that you are safe whil you are inside these walls." Dumbledore explained.

"So you mean to tell me that we only got in because we were British?" asked Griffith in mild suprise.

"Yes. I have been told that some of your men touched our castle gates, is that correct?" asked the old man from across his desk.

"Yeah they did, and then they went completely bannanas. Could that have been one of the security charms you mentioned?" inquired Griffith.

"Indeed that was a security charm, but because you and your men are British it only took affect when you physically tried to enter the castle. If the Russians or Chinese get within five miles of this castle they will experience a similar situation, only on a much larger scale." said the headmaster with a twinkle in his eye.

"Allright, suppose I keep my men here for a few days until we decide what to do. What then? We still have no way to reach our headquarters and by now we're more than likly surrounded by Russian occupied towns, or whats left of them i should say. That still leaves us with no evac plan and no way to get out of this mess." said Griffith with reproach as he thought about his situation.

"Leave that to me Sergent. Stay as long as you like and when your ready to leave i'll personally see to it you reach your destination." Dumbledore said as he stood.

"Give me and my men three days to rest. Then, after we've recovered we'll talk about getting out of here." said Griffith as he turned to face Dumbledore.

"Very well, now lets talk about your sleeping arrangments." said the headmaster as they left his office.

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Crawford and the rest of the soldiers waited in the massive hallway for the segent to return as they guessed what the castle could be to pass the time.

"You think its like, a secret government building or something like that?" aked a soldier.

"Could be, but somehow i don't think they'd choose a castle for something like that. My moneys on a cult, a wierd ass cult." said another soldier.

"A cult? No way man, that old guy said it was a school. Sounds resonable see as theres a bunch of kids here." reasoned Brooks as he sat back in thought.

"Just stay on guard, you never know what can happen." Crawford said as he paced the massive hallway they were in.

"Whoa Crawford, take it easy. Thier just kids, i don't really think we gotta worry about it man." said a soldier named Losher.

"You never know at a time like this, they could be anyone. Russian sympathizers or they could even be in leauge with the Chinese. All i'm saying is keep your guard up." Crawford warned as he continued to pace the room. After a few more steps a side door opened and the Segent returned.

"Well men, we got us a genuine school here." said the Sergent, obviously he knew they wanted answers.

"So it is a school, what they hell is a school doin way out here. And why the hell is the school a damn castle?" asked Brooks confused.

"Well it ain't just any old school. They teach a rather...unusual subject here." said the segernt evasively.

"What do you mean sarge?" asked a confused soldier.

"Now's not the time boys, now's not the time. The headmaster says we're welcome to stay for a few days and i think we'll just have to take him up on that offer. We're tired and we could use a few days rest, now he also said we wont need to put up any defenses.  
Thats something i'm going to have to disagree with him on, better safe than sorry." said the Sarge as he looked at his men.

"So we're staying here for a few days then. They have enough room for us?" asked Crawford suprised. Not many places have enough room for two hundred and some odd troops they didn't know were coming.

"Oh yeah, he assured me room is the least of our worries. Now, we'll be sleeping in seperate parts of the castle as there isn't enough room in any one place. But I figure we're goin to have to find a good place to fortify while we're here. That way if we are attacked at least we have a secure place to fall back to. For now we're just gonna wait here, he said someone will be along to show us to our sleeping areas." the Sergent said as he leaned against the wall and lighted up a cigar.

"Sarge, when do we find out what this place is." asked Crawford.

"Not right now Crawford. Gimme some time to find out some more things myself. We'll all meet back here tomorrow at 0900 and i'll let everyone know whats going on here." said the sergent as he took a drag. When the sarge exhaled a door opened and an incredibly large man stepped out.

"Hello sirs, my names Rubeus Hagrid an i'm the groundskeeper here at Hogwarts. Dumbledore told me to take you to yer sleepin places so follow me and ye'll be rested in no time!" exclaimed the giant as he led them through hallways.

Crawford began to feel that this place was somewhere he had never been meant to go.

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Meanwhile, at the now Russian occupied Scottish town of Aberdeen.

Major Chekov had been looking over his basic battle plans when he heard a large crack behind him. Just because he wasn't on the front lines anymore didn't mean he wasn't still a soldier and his reaction time was quite fast. He pulled his gun and turned around to find the source of the sound, what he saw disturbed him.

It was a man in a long black robe, well it looked like a man. The face however, was more like that of a snake with its red eyes and slits for a nose. Chekov was too stunned to shoot as he stared into the red eyes of the unknown man. With a large serpent like grin the snake man raised his right hand and spoke.

"Avada Kedavra!"said the snake man. Chekov heard nothing more than a rushing sound as he fell to the ground instantly dead. Several men in black robes appeared at the snake mans side.

"Take the body." said the snake man with a look of cold evil on his face.


	5. The approaching army

Hey sorry it took awhile to update but i wasn't sure how i wanted to move forward.

Also, i'm gonna be going to visit my family in Oregon soon and they don't have internet access. I'll try to get this story finished before that but if i don't get any feedback i'll lose interest. If you wanna see it finished let me know, if not its gonna be about a month after i leave before i get back. (Im leaving around the end of july or beggining of August)

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Crawford had been seeking solitude more and more. He had begun to take walks around the castle just to kill time. The castle was huge, with hundreds of stairways and corridors. He had never been in a castle before although he had never really expected to be in one let alone one full of magic.

He was sitting by the lake, a place which had fast become his favorite spot, when he saw a group of girls come running over to him. 'Great, just what i need. What the hell is this about?' he asked himself as the girls got closer. Some of his squadmates had been hitting on the schoolgirls and as a result some of the girls began to hit on some soldiers. He got up and prepared to shoot them down,  
so to speak.

"Are you Crawford?" asked a rather mousy looking girl. He was caught off guard, she knew his name.

"Yes." he answered simply.

"Well Dumbledore and the general man want to see you in the Great Hall." she told him as she handed him a small note.

"He's a sergent, not a general." Crawford told her as she walked away and he read the note. It was short and to the point.

'Position compromised, ground forces moving in.'

He read the note again as he hurried into the castle. Ground forces moving in? They had been told they were safe here, Dumbledore had assured them more than once they would not have to fear an attack. Crawford moved faster as he began to realize just how easily this castle would fall to a direct assualt.

He reached the Great Hall and threw the doors open with all his might. He had expected to see his fellow squadmates unpacking .50 calibers or preparing to get the hell out of here. What he did not expect was an entire student body eating thier breakfast. He looked around confused for a moment until he saw the girl that had handed him the note.

She was surrounded by students in emerald green robes, who were all laughing thier heads off. He noticed the girl seemed rather unhappy about it but it made no difference, they had fucked with the wrong soldier.

"Is something wrong soldier?" asked the headmaster as he stood. The hall had become silent as he spoke.

"No, just got lost is all." he replied as he turned to leave, he gave the group of students a cold look before he closed the door. He wouldn't let those little bastards get away with this shit. He would wait for the little scum, how long he didn't know. Time mattered little to him though, he was a very patient man.

-An hour later

He spotted the little group of green robes punks leave and followed them immediately. He did not even need to hide himself or try and keep silent, they were completely oblivious to him. He got a little closer and was able to catch the conversation.

"Did you see the look on that stupid muggle's face!" said the smallest male out of the group.

"Ha, yeah good one Draco." replied one of the larger ones.

"I still think it was a bad idea Draco." said the girl who had givin him the note. The men in the group looked shocked at what they heard.

"A bad idea!? Don't tell me you've become a muggle lover all of the sudden!" said the boy named Draco harshly.

"She's probably got a crush on the muggle!" said one of the large students.

"Pansy and a dirt blooded muggle, what a perfect match!" laughed another of the students.

"Its not that!" she replied a little too quickly. "What if he'd have said something! We could have been in serious trouble!"

"That muggle fool knew his place." said Draco confidently. Crawford looked around and saw they were alone in this hallway. He decided it was time to let them know he was here.

"I've been looking for you." he said as they turned around and gasped when they saw him.

"And whys that?" asked Draco defensively. Crawford wasn't here to answer questions however, and he started to close the distance between them.

"I asked you a question muggle!" said Draco, but Crawford only laughed. He was close enough now, so he did what he had followed them to do. He punched Draco in the stomach, very hard. Draco's goon friends tried to pull thier wands but his military training was much too quick for them. He sent a punch to the larger ones throat and watched him drop like a sack of potatos. He easily floored the other with another punch that hit him square in the face. He howled and fell to the ground.

Crawford walked over to Draco while kicking wands away from hands and leaned down to talk to him.

"I don't know or care who you and you friends are. If you ever even so much as come near me again i'll beat you to within an inch of your life." he said as he stood and turned to face the girl. He gave her a cold look as he made his way up to his sleeping quarters.

He didn't know if he could handle another day and a half of this bullshit.

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Sergent Griffith had been sleeping when he heard someone.

"Sarge, hey sarge. Get up ya damn bu7m the headmaster guy wants a word." said a soldier whose name he was too tired to remember.

"Yeah, yeah, i'm up." he said as he put on his shirt and headed towards Dumbledore office. He reached it several minutes later as he shook off his grogginess. He walked into the rather nice office and asked the headmaster straight out.

"Why in the hell did you wake me up Dumbledore?" he inquired as he fought to keep his eyes from closing.

"Sergent, take a seat. We have some disturbing things to discuss."said the headmaster grimly. Griffith took his seat and stared at the man, Dumbledore had a very negative look to him.

"What do we need to discuss?" asked the sergent as his tiredness began to evaporate.

"You remember the Dark wizard i spoke of before?" asked the headmaster.

"Yeah, Lord Voldenort or something." Griffith guessed he was not about to hear anything good.

"Voldemort, yes. I have recieved information that he is headed this way, and whats more he has an army. A Russian army." said Dumbledore as he leaned back and sighed.

"You mean he has the Russian army on his side? Hows that even possible? Could the Russians be allied with him?" the sergent asked all three questions very quickly. The Russians were already an almost insurmountable foe, he didn't even want to imagine them with one of the most powerful Dark wizards in history on thier side.

"We do not believe the Russian government had anything to do with this. There are dozens of ways for a wizard of Voldemorts power to have gathered this army. None the less he is coming and we must be prepared." said Dumbledore with a grave face. Griffith didn't understand, need to prepare?

"What do you mean, are you suggesting we fight? This is a school full of children Dumbledore, not soldiers. We need to retreat." said the sergent as he watched the headmaster.

"I'm afraid retreat is not an option at this point. Voldemort has apparently aquired a nuclear weapon." said Dumbledore to a shocked sergent Griffith.

"What!?" Griffith barked. How in the hell was this possible?

"It seems the Russians were planning nothing less than the full scale destruction of Britan after they had captured all of its nuclear weapon facilities. After they had taken England's nuclear defense away they planned to retreat and turn us all into ashes." said the headmaster as he hung his head.

"Wait, if he has a nuke, then why doesn't he just use it on this castle? And how does that stop us from retreating?" asked the sergent, still confused.

"This castle has too much magic around it. If he launched the missle here the magic in the air would cause it too malfunction. It prevents our retreat for one reason. He threatened to drop it on London if we do not face him." Dumbledore explained. The sergent still saw a few things wrong with this.

"Well first off, even if the damn nuke malfuctions in the air its still gonna explode when it hits the ground. The shear force of the impact will cause it to blow. And also, why didn't he just use the threat of a nuke strike to force our surrender?" asked the sergent.

"Sergent Griffith, wizards have no knowledge of the complexity of muggle technology. If the nuclear weapon would indeed still explode after passing through the magic in the air then Voldemort doesn't know this. And to your second question, why would he force us to fight instead of surrender? Its obvious if you think about it. He's a tyrant, plain and simple. Voldemort will want to make an example out of us to discourage others from standing against him." said Dumbledore as he stood and walked to the window.

"How long do we have?" asked Griffith.

"Not long, four days at the most." replied the headmaster.

"Do you know how many he has?" the sergent asked as he lit up a smoke.

"No, only that he has a large well armed force. I was also told he has a few dozen metal machines called tanks. Are those better or worse that soldiers?" asked Dumbledore.

"Worse, alot worse. A tank division could level this castle in very little time." said the sergent as he took a long drag. He had givin up smoking when the war started but it looked like it wouldn't matter if he smoked or not in a few days time.

"Then we'll have to deal with these tanks first if we want any hope of winning." Dumbledore said more to himself than the sergent. Then Griffith suddenly wondered how the headmaster could know so much about Voldemort, he decided to ask.

"If you don't mind me asking, just how in the hell do you know all this?" said Griffith as he waited for an answer.

"All wars have spies sergent, even a wizards war." he replied as they made thier way back to his desk.

"So what do we do now?" asked the sergent as he lit up another smoke.

"We prepare for war sergent. We prepare for war." replied the headmaster. Griffith wasn't sure how this would play out, but he was sure of one thing. It was going to be bloody, very bloody.

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Harry will be back in the next chapter which will focus more on the magic side seeing as i've kind of ignored it so far.

And also, just so you know. There will be several pairings in this fic but as soon as the battle starts characters are gonna start dropping like flies. Its gonna be a friggin bloodbath and im even concidering killing everyone off.

Note: if you don't want a certain pairing to die tell me in a review, depending on how convincing you are i may just spare them, maybe.


	6. Preparation

Sorry it took me so long to update. Life just kinda got in the way for awhile. But I'm back now and so is this story, and i think im gonna get to the actual war within the next few chapters. I don't want it to take too long but i don't want it to feel rushed either.

Harry woke up the next morning quite tired. The first person he saw was Ron.

"Classes canceled today man. Dumbledore called some big meeting in the Great Hall. Better get dressed." said Ron as he let out a yawn.

Harry got up and put his robes on before making his was to the Great Hall with the others. When he got there he looked around and realized it was the fullest he'd ever seen it.

Every single student, teacher, and solider were gathered to hear Dumbledore's announcement. From the looks on the soldier's faces, as well as the teachers, it was going to be a grave announcement. Moments later Dumbledore was speaking, and the hall became silent in order to listen.

"Students, as well as our friends from the muggle armed forces, i have a very grim announcement to make. Voldemort, always cunning, has decided to use the muggle war to his advantage. He recently persuaded a very sizable amount of Russian troops to join his cause. How he did this remains a mystery, however, that matters little. He is bringing them here as we speak. He has also somehow managed to shutdown our floo powder network, effectively cutting off our retreat. In short, all classes will be suspended as we prepare to defend ourselves from this threat. All those who wish to fight will be allowed, provided that they are in or above the fourth year. All those under the fourth year will assist in the preparations before fleeing into the dungeons to ride out the storm." Dumbledore told them gravely before stepping down.

Hushed voices of panic swept the Hall as the soldiers began to make their exit. Harry made his way to the teachers and flagged down Hagrid, as he was the first teacher he saw.

"Hagrid! Hey Hagrid, what's going on!" Harry called to him, Hagrid turned and spoke to him.

"There ye are Harry! Dumbledore want ta see ya!" he shouted over the noise as Harry began to follow him to the headmaster's office.

"Voldemort's got a muggle army! He's bringing war isn't he Hagrid." Harry said, more to himself than Hagrid.

"Looks that way Harry. I have'ta say though, I'm surprised he would use muggle's like this. You'd think someone like him, with all his anti muggle gibberish, would never consider it." said Hagrid.

"He's only using them as fodder. Like...meat for the grinder." said Harry hatefully. As the approached the door to Dumbledore's office Harry was thankful he was at least going to find out what in the hell was going on.

Crawford took the men and began to lead them around the castle, setting up defenses. A teacher was with them, that pale fellow they caught outside the castle. Crawford simply ignored him.

"How many rounds do we have for those .50 calibers?" Crawford asked his lieutenant.

"Not many, maybe three thousand." replied the man, Crawford read his name tag, it said Grimes.

"Shit, that's got gonna be enough." replied Crawford as he smoked his cigarette thinking.

"What do you need?" asked the teacher, Snape.

"Ammunition, which i doubt you have." he said sarcastically as a few of the soilder's laughed.

"Let me see one." asked the teacher.

"Let you see one of what?" asked Brooks.

"One of those ammunition's." said Snape, a bit more laughter followed.

"Get him some ammunition's." joked Newman as he threw the man a .50 caliber shell. Wizard looked at it before placing it in his hand.

"Dissembliuos!" cried Snape as the bullet separated into each of it's separate parts. Crawford watched as the primer popped out, followed by the shell casing and even the bullet itself.

"Simple gunpowder, with an incendiary catalyst, which propels this metal bullet correct?" asked Snape after a moment of inspection.

"Yep, that's about all there is too it. Why?" asked Crawford, he was wondering if this man wasn't quite as stupid as he looked.

"How many do you need?" asked Snape as the bullet reassembled itself.

"You can make more?" Crawford asked, not quite dumbfounded but very surprised.

"As many as you like." said the Wizard smugly.

"100,000. Make us a hundred thousand more shells. What was your name again?" asked Crawford, still shocked these people could reproduce war materials out of thin air in such numbers. They might end up being all right after all.

"Professor Serverus Snape." replied the pale man.

"Well Professor Snape, sorry about the earlier sarcasm. It appears i underestimated you. You know anything about tanks?" Crawford asked as he puffed his smoke.

"Nothing at all." he said quickly, Crawford got the feeling this man did not like to appear foolish in any way.

"Barns, Barns! Where the hells Barns?" asked Crawford. His men kept getting lost in this damn maze of a castle.

"Right here sir!" said Barns as he came running down a hallway.

"Well go with Professor Snape here and show him some Russian tank schematics. You still got those Russian armament books right?" he asked the solider.

"Yes sir. Mr. Snape is it?" asked Barns, still out of breath as he reached to shake the teachers hand. The gesture went unnoticed.

"Professor Snape." the pale man corrected as they headed off to find some muggle runes teacher, or something like that. Crawford didn't really catch it all, he was too busy wondering how in the hell they were gonna stop an entire division of Russian troops. He figured Griffith was talking to the headmaster about it right now.

"Okay men, now that we know ammo isn't gonna be a problem I want Grimes, Brooks, Losher and Newman too scout this school. Try and find a few fallback locations, as well as the most advantageous areas to place our .50 cal's and 32 millimeters. We wont get anywhere if we keep marching back and forth in one big group, the damn castle is just too big. And i got this weird idea that the staircases don't always take you too the same floor every time. Anyway the rest of you divide into 4 groups and draw me some kind of a map, i don't care how detailed it is just get me a lay out of all these fuckin hallways so we know where in the hell we are. Meet back here in two hours time, and you better have done what i asked." he told them.

"Yes sir!" cried the men as they began to shuffle out of the hallway. Crawford rested against the wall for a moment before heading towards the Great Hall to find the Sergent.

As Harry entered the headmasters office Hagrid parted ways with him. He said something about rounding up some creatures before hastily making his exit.

"Harry, sit down." said the headmaster as he took his own seat. Harry sat down but spoke immediately.

"Dumbledore, what about the horcruxes?" Harry asked immediately.

"Ah yes, those. Well we have already managed to destroy two of them, the book and the ring. However, up to four remain, possibly even five." he said quite calmly.

"How can you be so calm? If he comes here and we haven't destroyed all of them, then any victory we achieve will only be temporary!" Harry said urgently.

"Yes, true true. Although it may not be a permanent defeat for Voldemort, it will give us time. Time to go on the hunt for his shattered soul, to strike the blow that will leave him defeated forever. I did not anticipate these turn of events, i had wished for more time myself. But alas we cannot fight against fate, this is how it must be not matter how feel about it. There are no more choices now, do you understand? We must fight him now, because we have no other option. We will face him, horcruxes or not, because he has forced us to. He thinks he has us backed into a corner and now he is preparing to deal the killing blow. We can prevent this, we must prevent this." Dumbledore told him as he listened intently.

"How will we stop them? There are so many..." Harry said, sounding as if they had already lost.

"Now now, we don't know how many there are. There may be only a few hundred. We have our teachers working to find out if any spells will be effective against their technology, something i doubt the Dark Lord will be doing mind you." said Dumbledore with that familiar twinkle in his eye.

Brooks, Losher and Grimes were trying to get to the top of one of the towers, unfortunately it was quite a bit harder than they thought.

"What the fuck man! How many damn stairs are there in this place?" asked Grimes as the other two soldiers helped him pull his foot out of a stair it has somehow sunken into.

"I dunno, but i tell ya what. I'm gonna get one of these damn kids to help us, I'm sick of this running into dead ends shit." said Brooks. He made his way back down a few flights of stairs and into a hallway. He looked around and it wasn't long before he saw a student.

"Hey! Could you help me, we're trying to get to the top of this tower but we keep hitting dead ends and booby traps and shit. Could you show us the way? Or maybe get someone to show us the way?" he asked the startled girl.

"Um, sure i guess so." she said timidly. He got the feeling this was not a timid girl however, she had the build of an athlete.

"Thank you darlin. Whats your name?" he asked her, still out of breath from the seemingly endless flights of stairs.

"Katie, Katie Bell." she told him. He looked her over, she was about sixteen, maybe seventeen. She was tall, had strong legs and long brunette hair. If this were a different situation he probably would have asked her to dinner, well that is if he wasn't worried about being a bloody pile of guts in a few days.

"Well Katie, nice to meet you. My names Seth Brooks, now hows about you go get those friends and you can show us where in the fuck to go in this castle." he said as he leaned against the wall and pulled out his can of chewing tobacco. He packed it and threw in a very sizable dip. As he felt the juices he was thankful he was a dipper and not a smoker, people never asked him for a chew. All his buddies blew through their smokes in just a few days, most of them being given away. His can lasted him as long as he wanted it too.

The only other person he knew that dipped was Crawford, and that crazy bastard also smoked. Brooks was thankful Crawford was the only other solider that dipped though, as he never had to worry about that guy bummin a dip off him. Crawford just wasn't the type to ask shit from anybody, except maybe for some covering fire. He realized miss Katie Bell had not left to get her friends, she was still standing there watching him.

"Are you gonna get those friends or not?" he said to her. She jumped a bit, she must have been spacing out or something.

"Sorry, it's just..." she started before stopping quickly, like she couldn't figure out how to word it properly.

"It's just what?" he asked politely.

"Oh never mind." she said as she started to turn away.

"Hey, c'mon now. Finish what you were saying." he said.

"Well. I was just gonna ask, what is that you just put in your lip?" she asked innocently. She looked like she was afraid he would get angry, he laughed a bit before answering.

"Oh nothing to worry about. Just a little chew." he said as he spit.

"Chew? And you spit it out? That's disgusting." she said as she gave a small shiver.

"Ha, its a disgusting world out there." he said as he looked her over, he could tell she had something else to say.

"Well i was gonna ask, why are all of you always smoking and cursing? I mean, i understand some people smoke and people obviously curse sometimes...but ALL of you smoke. ALL of you curse, like ALL the time." she said, gaining some confidence as she spoke.

"Well, lemme ask you this. Have you ever heard about our wars? Have you ever seen anything about them, learned about them?" he asked her.

"No, I guess not." she said honestly.

"Well when those Russian's get here with Dark Lord what's his face, you'll know exactly why. After you see the carnage, the...blood. The death, you'll know. Now how bout getting those friends, or fellow students or whatever beautiful." he told her as he headed back up to Losher and Grimes.

'_We're fucked. Just a buncha damn kids here, they ain't ready for the shitstorm that's about to hit em._' he said to himself as he ascended the stairs.


	7. Battle Plan

WROTE this at 4 in the am. Went to bed with a feeling of accomplishment, priceless.

Crawford was busy looking over tank schematics with some of the higher year students, all the teachers were busy casting fortification spells. It was very hit or miss he had discovered, as the students had to be told how each specific part of a tank works, then rack their brains for a spell that might be effective against it.

"So whats that spell you mentioned, the one that can ignite a specific object?" he asked again, trying to get a straight answer.

"Inflamus, but it won't work." replied the student, a seventh year named Cho Chang. Apparently she was supposed to be quite knowledgeable. Crawford couldn't help but notice however that she seemed quite distracted.

"And why not?" he replied, this spell could supposedly set fire to certain things. Things like gunpowder.

"You showed me how much gunpowder there was in one of those bullets, there needs to be more in order for the spell to catch in such a confined space." she said glumly. How many times did he have to say it?

"Yeah, but a tank shell is more than ten times the size of a single bullet, for the fourth time. That means at least ten times the space and gunpowder. So?" Crawford asked again, if she still didn't get it she'd better watch out because his patience was nearing it's limit.

"Ten times the size? Why didn't you say so? Yeah that would work, we'd have to have some pretty accurate spell casters but if one hit it would ignite. Why didn't you say so?" she said. Crawford had never been tempted to hurt a lady more than he was at that moment.

"Go back to class girl, i'll get somebody else to help me." he said, the anger very clear in his voice. He fired up a smoke and took a long drag to calm down. When he looked up he was caught rather off guard, she was crying. And not just a single tear but a genuine waterworks had started to flow.

"You didn't have to say it so mean!" she said in tears as she ran out the door. Crawford scratched his head, feeling a little guilty.

"That was pretty harsh man..." said Barns, laughing with Newman. He shook his head and left the room.

"Ah man, that guys got no charm with the ladies." said Newman, still cracking up.

"Ya, but a guy like Crawford doesn't need charm. He's got something else." said Barns as he began to motion a passing teacher.

"What's that?" asked Newman.

"Nerves of fucking steel." he replied before asking the teacher to fetch another student.

Harry was helping some of the students move all the paintings into the dungeons, a task with they were not happy about. He had been hoping to be assigned a more serious task, as he thought the safety of paintings(especially some of the loudmouth ones) was much less important than other things. Like the prophecy, or the horcruxes, or their battle plan.

"Harry, you know this is important too." said Hermione, as she carried a painting which depicted a bunch ov plump women at a tea party. Needless to say they where unhappy.

"Oh i say, this is most unpleasant." said the plumpest lady in the painting, in a rather snobbish tone.

"Oh be quiet you fat cow." said Ron, he was doing the heavy lifting. His painting had a very large, very heavy wood rim.

"It still seems like its below us." said Harry, not really paying attention to the conversation.

"Mr. High and Mighty." she replied, Ron laughing in between his grunts. The next second they heard a door being thrown open, the handle smashing nosily into the stone wall. A crying girl came flying out straight at them, her face buried in her hands.  
She didn't see them, and the painting was too bulky or else Harry could have got out of the way. Unfortunately he could not, and they went crashing to the floor.

Harry acted quickly and tossed away the painting, before curving his body to absorb the impact. Who ever this girl was he didn't want her crashing headfirst into a stone floor because she didn't see someone. His back slammed down hard causing sudden and immense pain, however, his maneuver had worked. She had landed softly on top of him before rolling off to the side.  
He clutched his sides in pain for a few moments before he heard her speak.

"Oh thank you, are you oka..y." she started before her voice became faint. She sounded familiar but he couldn't place it, most likely because he was having difficulty breathing. He rolled over to ask her what in the hell she thought she was doing and he realized who it was.

'_Cho_' he thought, '_I should've known, she was crying after all_.' He stood up as she did and their eyes met when they were upright. It was what one would call an awkward moment.

"Oh, it's you." she said quietly. Harry looked at Ron and Hermione for a moment, seconds later they had made a hasty retreat.

"Hey Cho." he said, his voice was flat and emotionless. Her face sunk a little, he had not meant to sound so cold.

"Hey Harry." she said, looking down and wiping the tears from her eyes.

"Rough day?" he asked, trying to sound more friendly.

"You could say that. I should go." she said as she started to walk off.

"Cho, wait..." Harry said, before stopping. Did he really want to go down this road?

"What is it Harry?" she asked with a sad look on her face.

"I...nothing." he said as he picked up the painting and left the room. He had wanted to tell her...how he couldn't seem to get her out of his mind lately. How he'd been dreaming about her, how he'd been thinking about how different last Valentines Day could have gone if he would have had any idea what he was doing. Instead he said nothing and walked away. He let out a short, hollow laugh. He was not afraid to fight Voldemort, he was not afraid to die, but telling Cho Chang he might love her terrified him more than anything.

Crawford entered the Great Hall with a smoke in his mouth and a scowl on his face. He was headed to the Headmaster's office. Griffith, himself and Dumbledore were about to go over the battle plan. As sometime in the next 48 hours was going to go into effect. He was surprised he had got the invite, but suspected it was more out of necessity than respect.

He entered the office, took a moment to put the eye on it's many small and delicate objects, and took a seat aside the Sergent. His commanding officer lit up a cigar, and turned to him before speaking.

"Professor Dumbledore here has been busy letting me know just how ratfucked we are." Griffith said.

"How bad is it?" he asked, ready for any answer,

"Well, they got about twelve tanks and fifteen hundred men. Plus whatever Voldemort's got to throw in the pot and you got yourself a pretty mean fuckin stew." he said with grim determination.

"It's possible. We found some spells that might remove the tanks from the equation." Crawford told them.

"Really? And what may I ask are they?" Dumbledore inquired thoughtfully.

"Well the Inflamus spell would ignite the gunpowder in the tank shells, but it would have to be right down the barrel and those tanks aren't exactly gonna be right next to us. Then the Locomotus spell could stop the treads and immobilize them, leaving them open to further spells, but i'd imagine the tanks will have some foot soldier's around to watch their backs." said Crawford as he laid it out.

"Interesting. You were just mulling over away to dispatch the tanks yourself, were you not Sergent? Did you not just say unless they are removed or disabled somehow all is lost?" Dumbledore said to Griffith. It sounded patronizing but it was not, Dumbledore was thinking as he spoke and Crawford was pretty sure this old man could think with the best of them.

"Sure was. But we'd have to get close, what's a spells range Dumbledore, accurate range that is?" asked Griffith.

"Oh about, seventy-five to a hundred yards, that's if your a good spell caster." replied Dumbledore.

"We'd have to commit a serious force to it. It would take alot to get that close to the tanks and hold the ground long enough to get in some spells." Crawford spoke up, catching on.

"Yes indeed, the only question is how many of each can we spare?" Dumbledore questioned as he furled his brow.

"Enough to be sure. Crawford, I want you to gather forty men, good ones. Ones that won't break easy, one's that aren't gonna get out there and shit themselves. I think forty men and maybe, oh I dunno, twenty wizards who can aim a spell could do it. Only thing is, those wizards never seen the kinda war we fight so be ready if one starts cryin for their mama." the Sergent told him as he puffed his cigar again.

"I only hope they can achieve this task, or the castle may not stand long enough to mount much of a defense." Dumbledore said in that same gloomy yet somehow insightful or upbeat tone.

'_Forty men..._' he thought. '_Fourty pounds of meat for the grinder._' Fourty souls he must ask to stand with him on the frontlines, face to face with thier doom.

"What about the wizards? Will they be students?" thought Crawford suddenly, a sinking feeling in his gut.

"As few as possible. I have some friends, reinforcements if you will, arriving within the hour. They are numerous and very skilled, some of whom even specialize in covert actions. You will have wizards who are up to the challenge I assure you." said Dumbledore as they excused themselves.

"I dunno about these covert action guys," said Sarge. "But I know your up to the challenge Crawford. Between the two of us we just be able to save our asses, and some others, after all." Sarge told him as they made their way out of the office.


	8. Out of Time

Another chapter for ya'lls.

"Hey Brooks, you find us a guide through this damn maze of a school?" asked Losher as Brooks got back up the stairs to to the hallway.

"Sure did, she's on her way now." he said as he threw his dip out. Chewing tobacco and stairs did not mix well it seemed.

"She?" asked Grimes, his head perking up.

"Yup, and she's bringing some friends." he said with a smile on his face. He knew Losher and Grimes would like that.

"I like your style Brooks." said Losher as footsteps were heard on the steps.

"Must be them now." Grimes said, doing his best to puff out his chest. Brooks laughed at this before lighting up a smoke. He turned his eyes to the stairs and saw them come into the hallway. Katie was out front, looking right at him he realized.

"Seth this is Parvati and Lavender." she said, introducing her friends.

"Hey ladies, I'm-" he started before Losher cut him off.

"Seth? Ahhaha, you must like this chick." laughed Losher.

"Why do you say that?" Katie asked, her face was unreadable.

"I've fought and bled with this guy here and I didn't even know his first name." Losher told her as Parvati and Lavender giggled. Brooks was tiring of this childish shit.

"Shut the fuck up Losher we ain't got time for nonsense. Now ladies listen up, we only got about an hour before we're supposed to report back to our superior and we ain't got shit done yet. So what I need is for you to take us to the tallest towers, the best fallback locations, and show us which hallways don't fuckin dead end." he told them, instantly Parvati and Lavender had confused looks on their faces.

"Fallback locations?" asked Lavender confused.

"I'll show him those, you girls just take these guys to the Astronomy tower." Katie said as she motioned for Brooks to follow her.

"One second." Brooks told her as he motioned Losher and Grimes over for a quick word.

"What is it?" asked Grimes, obviously distracted by the girls short skirts.

"Now i hope this doesn't have to be said, but keep your dicks in your pants gentlemen. Thats an order." He said before making his way down the stairs to follow Katie.

"That fucking guy. What does he think we are retarded?" asked Grimes.

"I dunno man, I understand why he said it." said Losher, looking at the Lavender girl. She was giving him a very big smile.  
They walked over to the girls and spoke.

"Shall we?" asked Grimes.

"Sure, it's this way." said Parvati as she started off. Grimes walked beside her in the front while Losher walked with Lavender in the back.

"So what's this school like? Doing magic and shit all day must be pretty fun." Grimes said enthusiastically.

"Yeah, it's okay..." said Parvati shyly. Losher could tell she was uncomfortable around strong language.

"So um...Losher is it? Where are you from?" asked Lavender. Bad question, his childhood wasn't exactly his favorite topic.

"Rather not say, how bout you?" he asked her back.

"Well I'm not telling if your not." she said with a sly smile on her face.

"Okay...whats your favorite subject?" Losher asked her, changing the topic of conversation.

"I like Defense against the Dark Arts but Charms is my favorite. What was your favorite subject at school?" she answered before firing back with another question, hitting yet another sore subject.

"Didn't go to school." he told her. She turned her head and looked at the wall in silence, probably wondering if he was an asshole or not. He didn't mean to be, school and family happened to be his least favorite things to discuss.

"Sorry." he told her, feeling slightly guilty.

"It's okay, everyone has something they don't want to talk about." she said quietly.

"Maybe I'll tell you sometime, but we're gonna have to get to know each other much better before we start going down that road." he told her.

"I would like that." she told him. He looked at her for moment, she stared straight back. It had been awhile since Jack Losher had been givin a chance by a woman he liked. Too bad they'd probably both be dead next week. Mean while Grimes and Parvati's conversation was not going as smoothly.

"How much farther to this damn tower anyway?" Grimes asked.

"Not much longer, it's just at the end of this hallway." Parvati responded.

"Good, I'm sick of all this walking. This fuckin school is way too big methinks." he said smiling, oblivious to her uncomfortable look.

"Could you-" she started before he cut her off.

"Marry you and take you outta this dusty ass place? Sure babe, but lets just get to the top of this bitch first okay?" Grimes said laughing as he raced up the stairs ahead of her.

"Ugh." she exclaimed before following reluctantly. Lavender and Losher continued down the hallway as she helped him draw a rough outline of this levels major hallways.

Meanwhile, Brooks and Katie were descending into the dungeons. As they walked into the increasingly gloomy environment the silence became more uncomfortable by the moment. Brooks decided to break it.

"Jesus this place is depressing. I don't know about pulling back here for our last stand, we might lose hope just looking at this place." he said. He meant it to be a joke but it came out sounding serious.

"It's the easiest place to defend. Nice and easy to retreat to and hell to get into." she said smartly. He gave her a look before examining the room.

It was a big open dungeon, huge really. About the size of a football field, maybe a bit bigger. They could easily put up barricades and a few .50 calibers, this would be one damn fine place to mount a last stand he had to admit.

"Okay, this will do just fine. Now we gotta go fine the Sergent and plan out exactly how we wanna do this shit." he said as he stomped his cig out into the stone floor.

"What do you mean? Don't you just pull back everyone and bring them here when the time comes?" she asked. He laughed, she didn't know too much about contained retreats.

"Not really, at least not all the way to the place where you plan on making your last stand. We pull back little by little, trying to retreat as gradually as possible, prolonging the fight. If we all just ran down here right away we'd just be begging some asshole to toss a grenade in here, or launch a bazooka shell into the crowd." he told her.

"What's a bazooka?" she asked him, tilting her head to the side.

"Ha, never mind. lemme see that paper." Brooks told her. She handed him the blank page and of all things a quill to write with. He looked at it for a second before handing it back.

"You don't use these?" she asked.

"Nope, that's a little too old school. We have these things called pencils, much easier." he told her laughing. Why in the hell would they still use quill's?

A half an hour later Brooks had a decent outline of enough of the castle. He was pretty sure Crawford and the Sergent would be able to use it and plan what he hoped would be an effective defense.

"Thank you very much Katie. Wouldda been hell without ya." he told her. They were inside an empty class room, he had asked to be shown good sniper positions. Which he had to follow up with the explanation of what exactly a sniper was.

"You can thank me after it's over." she said, as she flashed him a smile.

"If I manage not to leave this place in a body bag that is." he said grimly. Her expression changed to what he thought was sadness.

"Why are you all like that?" Katie inquired.

"Like what?" he asked confused.

"Your talking like you've already lost. Like the next two or three days will be your last, why?" she said as she took a step closer to him.

"Because every time you go into battle you lose friends. And I've seen alot of battle's beautiful." Brooks said as he took a step towards her, they were face to face now.

"So your...prepared? For the worst..." she said softly.

"Yes. I don't want to die, but I'm not afraid of death. We all have to die some day." he said as he looked into her eyes. They were starting to tear up.

"I wish i was that strong. I'm so afraid..." she told him as the tears began to fall. Brooks put his arms around her and pulled her into a kiss.

"Don't be afraid, I'll keep you safe. When it happens just stay close to me." he said as he held her.

"You'll keep me safe?" she asked quietly. Brooks hesitated before he answered.

"I'll do my best." Brooks told her as he tried not to think about what could happen in the next few days.

Crawford was busy looking over the map's Brook's had given him. The Sergent had told him to pick out the sniper and .50 caliber locations. This castle was a snipers dream, lots of stories and lots of windows. They could run and gun quite effectively. The .50 caliber's were a bit different, as they had to be protected. Even so he was fairly sure the areas he picked would do very nicely.

He looked it over one more time, called it good, and headed to the Sergent with his map. It was a long walk to the headmaster's office but it went by in a flash and before he knew it Crawford was walking into the immaculate room. The Sergent was talking with Dumbledore and Snape. They were speaking fast, whatever they were discussing was important.

"I told you they're coming! We don't have much time." Snape said.

"He's right Dumbledore, we gotta move now. It's gonna take a bit to setup and we'll need every minute." the Sergent told him calmly as he lit up a cigar.

"Mr. Crawford. You have picked your spots I presume?" said the old man. He looked ancient, as if all the youth had been drained from his body.

"Yes sir. These are what i figure to be the best places to set up shop." he said as he laid down the map for them to see.

"Well just in time son. Just got word that army is movin in. They'll be here by nightfall." said Sergent Griffith as he gave Crawford a grim stare.

"By nightfall? I'm sorry sir but I gotta go, we have to start preparing the defense immediately." he told the Sergent as he gave him a salute before walking out of the room.

"Doesn't waste time does he?" Dumbledore said amusingly.

"Not when there's none left to waste he don't headmaster. Thank god he didn't ask how many troops this Voldemort asshole is bringin with him. Where are we on that reinforcement plan you had?" asked Griffith.

"Unfortunately almost every means of communication we have has been cut off. I have managed to contact certain individuals who may be able to put me in touch with your prime minister sometime later this evening. If we're lucky I can reach him before the assualt begins, if not, then we may be in for a long night gentlemen." the headmaster said quietly.

"What about the spell's that keep out foreigners? Will they be effective?" asked Griffith as he ashed his cigar before taking another long drag.

"Voldemort is a very powerful wizard. He will no doubt find ways to weaken the charm. The best we can hope for is that the soldier's may become confused...irrational. Some of them may lose control or simply start firing wildly at thier comrades. But for the most part, we have to assume at least 85% of the muggle army will still be combat ready." he told them as he fell into his chair.

"Well, I'll take what I can get. Now if you'll excuse me I got a war to prepare for." Griffith told them as he headed for the door.

Biggity BOOM. Shits gettin started.


End file.
